Labour, trade union reform and Erich Honecker

Ed Miliband‘s point man on the trade union reforms, Lord (Ray) Collins, has published his “interim report.” It’s more a series of questions than a report.

The leadership hopes it is nebulous and open-minded enough to sideline the issue through this year’s conference, starting on Sunday, so that coverage focuses on measures to help people with the cost of living instead.

What the brief document does do is underline that though the number of union members affiliated to Labour might shrink by massive proportions, the intention is not to shrink the unions’ share of the conference vote (49 per cent) and the electoral college (33 per cent) in this phase of reform.

‘Collective’

“We will need to consider what implications there are for the electoral college over time, as we move to a different system,” the report says.

The report repeatedly emphasises that “Ed,” as it refers throughout to the leader, wants a “collective voice” for trade unions in the Labour party – the critical buzz word “collective” is used six times.

“Ed does not want this individual relationship with trade union members to damage the collective relationship and the institutional links between the party and the union organisations.” writes Lord Collins.

The Blairites who cheered the original St Bride’s speech by Mr Miliband promising reform wanted an end to that collective role and still hope that Mr Miliband unwittingly or otherwise has opened the door to that.

Mr Miliband couldn’t have picked a better man than Lord Collins for this task.

Erich Honecker

One longstanding Labour MP who has known him for years describes Lord Collins as the ultimate Labour apparatchik.

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One reader comment

Philipsays:

Typical Ed. Tactics instead of strategy. What Labour needs is a bold vision of the role of a political party in relating to ordinary people & reflecting the views of ordinary people in its policies. instead we get a continued role for trade unions leaders who only reflect the views of them & a small number of people like them. It’s not only a missed opportunity in the real world, it’s also presentational missed opportunity to reconnect Labour with democracy. In any case, the tactics will fail – by backing off, the Tories will present him as being in the trade unions’ pockets & given that he’s not been scoring all that many points & the economy is less bad than it was, any opinion poll lead is going to vanish & if anyone seriously believes disaffected Tories are going to vote UKIP in an election that counts (as opposed to next year’s euro poll) they’re deceiving themselves….which is what I think he is. Besides, a government that conceivably got a majority on 30% of the vote because the opposition vote was split hardly has the moral authority to govern!